Do they still eat Melburnians?

We’re off to Sydney for a couple of days. Apart from the airport, and a brief transit through a city station on the way up to the Blue Mountains last year, I haven’t been to Sydney since I was eight. In 1984.

Have they built a bridge over the harbour, yet?

I suspect it might have changed somewhat.

Anything in particular I should keep an eye out for?

Why won’t anyone think of the corporate dinosaurs that malevolently dominated music last century?

Are you one of that tiny, tiny minority of Australians who occasionally downloads music from the internet? If so, you’re a terrible, terrible person and you’re making artists starve. You monster. Check out this new chart of how badly recording companies are doing in the awful new world you’ve created:

Okay, so artists seem to actually be doing better, despite – or, more likely, because of – your villainy. But who cares about that? Look at the only line that’s important – the recording companies’ revenues. See what your contempt for their archaic, artist-exploiting, consumer-screwing, grandmother-suing business model has wrought? If you keep this up, eventually recording studios will just be a service competing with each other for artists’ custom, and the vast majority of money spent by consumers on their music will end up in their pockets instead of those of the middle-men.

What a horrible future. You make me sick.

And what makes it worse is that the only people actively fighting it are the hugely wealthy recording companies and the politicians they’ve bribed. Those poor corporate dinosaurs are utterly doomed, if our governments in any way represent their citizens’ interests and can resist corruptly doing what the lobbyists are trying to pay them for.

Let’s hope that’s not the case.

Please, go back to buying music from them. It’s only by contributing to their coffers that you can help fund their campaign to stop artists taking over.

Give that they might dominate again.

(Via LGWS.)

The new scapegoat

Good news for conservatives – the lady at the supermarket last night, seeing my raised eyebrow at some overpriced item, suspected I was wondering at how quickly the prices of basic consumer goods are rising. And, she was more than willing to tell me what was to blame for them.

“That Copenhagen thing.”

She’s heard – you can guess where – that Copenhagen will make Australians’ lot unbearable. And that even before it’s signed, it’s already doing so. And she fervently believes it.

Copenhagen made my hair fall out!

Which is fantastic news for the powers that be. Because from December onwards, it’s the handy scapegoat for everything that goes wrong. Corporate Australia will screw the hell out of ordinary Australians, as they have been – and their advocates in the media will be shameless and relentless in using Copenhagen to blame it on “the left”.

It’s basically just a variation on the classic “keep public funding to schools and hospitals low so the rich can minimise tax – blame the resulting problems on the immigrants” sort of scheme.

A beautiful era of being ripped off and attacked for it at the same time approaches.

They’re bad, okay? Why do you have to actually SEE them?

Um, Obama? It’s a bit pointless going around Asia talking about open societies and basic freedoms when at home you’re trying to cover up what the government you now represent did as recently as last year:

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has blocked the release of more photographs of foreign detainees abused by their American captors, saying their release would endanger American soldiers.

The Obama administration filed a brief with the Supreme Court late Friday saying Mr. Gates had invoked new powers blocking the release.

And here voters for whom these sorts of issues are important were thinking that replacing a Republican President with a Democrat was going to make a difference. You’re going around the world advocating for “democracy”, whilst demonstrating that on fundamental issues at home – like accountability for torture – American citizens never actually got a meaningful choice.

Ooh! Ooh! I want a ride too!

At least the order only covers the Bush era, and you’re taking responsibility for what goes on on your watch. That’s a tiny step forward, I suppose.

I’m not scared of the “boat people”. I’m scared of YOU.

One of the most obvious questions I’d like to ask the “THEY’D BETTER NOT LAND HERE” crowd is – where would you like to send them?

Back home!

You mean to the land they’ve fled? The land they say is persecuting them? You don’t care if that means death, then?

Alright, back to their last port of call! Indonesia, wasn’t it?

You mean already overcrowded Indonesia that already takes its own share of refugees? You mean this Indonesia?

The Federal Government has described as “regrettable” the shooting of two suspected asylum seekers whose boat was intercepted by the Indonesian coastguard.

This is what I don’t understand about you and your ilk. I’m going to assume, for the sake of argument, that you are not a moron. Therefore, you realise that the people coming on the boats are fellow human beings. You realise that their input into our total immigrant numbers is miniscule. You realise that we are only one of many, many other countries to which refugees flee – and one of the minor destinations. You realise that most of the people who’ve dared the trip from Indonesia on shabby boats are ultimately found to be genuine refugees. You realise that this country was built on the backs of immigrants fleeing wartorn – and, yes, impoverished – countries for a chance at a better life. You realise that the “queue jumping” line, the attempt to play one refugee off against another, is ridiculous – no-one in an official queue has their application delayed because someone was picked up in a boat. You realise that there is no genuine security concern – terrorists would just fly in. You realise that jail is the toughest punishment we have, that we impose on the worst criminals in our country – and that the facilities in which we’re housing people who’ve committed no crime except trying to join us are essentially jails.

You realise that what the people on the boats are doing is precisely what you would do in the same circumstances.

And yet you want them STOPPED. You want them LOCKED UP. You want them SENT HOME.

And the party that promises to treat these people the worst, that party will get your vote?

I’m not scared of the dreaded “boat people”. I’m scared of you.

Vegetarians can have barbecues too, you know.

In light of Kevni’s apparently embarrassing cock-up in India, I thought you might like to know that our vegetarian experiment is still going strong.

In fact, right now we’re eating a delicious vegetarian vindaloo, made with cauliflower, tomatoes and spinach, and accompanied by tasty roti bread and home-made raita (yoghurt, cucumber, cumin, coriander and mint from the garden).

We’ve occasionally lapsed – at other people’s houses, when stuck without other food options late at night – but rarely. More than two months later, it’s working out well.

I’m sorry, Nandos – it looks like we won’t be back, after all.

Joss may have thought Fox deserved another chance: it didn’t

Quick note to Fox: this is why I’m not watching your shows any more:

Fox has decided not to renew Joss Whedon’s sophomore series “Dollhouse” for a third season.

There’s no point watching a series that’s building to something on Fox, because they’ll just cancel it – no matter how excellent it is. Firefly. Sarah Connor Chronicles. And now Dollhouse. What’s the point of starting a story you know they’ll never finish?

What does Fox have against Summer Glau?

This time I didn’t bother. And I’m glad I didn’t.

I wonder how far they can push this particular audience before they lose them completely.

PS On the plus side, this almost certainly means more Dr Horrible.

This country is superior to all others because I was born in it

A bit of childish name-calling in the Thailand/Cambodia spat gives me an excuse for a discussion of patriotism in the region over at Asian Correspondent.

(Note: site still in the experimental stage. When it’s set up properly I’ll let you guys know.)

No, that’s what sentences are for

So… British police are preventing courts from dealing with people because it’d be too much work to prosecute, and now, at the other extreme, the Victorian Corrections Minister wants to jail people after they’ve served their sentences.

TOUGH new laws introduced to the Victorian parliament will allow authorities to keep high-risk sex offenders in jail even after they have served their sentence.

Corrections Minister Bob Cameron said the new laws give courts the power to detain sex offenders for up to three years if they are deemed to present an unacceptable risk to the community.

If you wonder why I make such a big deal about the way the tabloid media misreport crime, this is why. Because we end up with politicians thinking that undoing the primacy of the courts in sentencing offenders, in weighing up the various factors – protection of the community, rehabilitation, deterrence, punishment – is somehow a good idea. That it’s somehow what the public actually wants.

This is the Supreme Court of Victoria. In it, people who commit serious crimes are sentenced by the Judges we appoint to do precisely that job, just as they have ever since our ancestors first realised it was a better system than mob lynchings.

Why would the public trust politicians and on-the-spot police justice to make these decisions instead of sentencing judges who have all the evidence in front of them?

Cameron’s proposal is an appalling idea. It springs from ignorance and spite, and cynical people pandering to (rather than correcting) that ignorance and spite. It won’t make anyone safer. Instead, it will result in injustice, and the waste of a good deal of public money fighting that injustice.

Yes.

We’ll build a massive eight-lane freeway, but a new rail line? Don’t be silly:

While the Brumby Government is willing to consider another freeway to the airport, a rail line from the CBD remains off the agenda.

On Monday, speaking at a transport conference, Roads Minister Tim Pallas said it was not a priority. ”It’s time we recognised the SkyBus service to Melbourne Airport is an enormously popular form of mass transit that successfully fulfils the need for public transport to the airport,” he said. ‘‘Should taxpayers devote a couple of billion dollars to a huge infrastructure project so Melbourne can boast of the dubious honour of an airport rail link?”

Yes.

Where’s our “Rail” Minister?